Mother (a Nativity poem)
Jo Acharya | December 20, 2023
She is filled with that unfathomable devotion,
And she knows
she could drown in this love
yet never plumb its depths.
Crinkled toes,
Long lashes—
A real tiny person dropped gently from heaven,
And out of all the arms in the world
He picked hers.
She senses the presence of God in
each yawn, each hiccup;
This squishy wriggle
that was not,
and then was,
and now seems always to have been.
Where was he before? That ancient entwining
of Love, Breath and Word.
Divine imagination
now spoken into life
of a new kind.
Nourished in her womb,
Born into the musty air;
His first gulp an embrace of
skin
and bone.
From I Am
to He is adorable!
This miniature body
holds the one who holds all.
Her body aches
with the memory of recent pain.
A heady incense hangs in the air:
sweat, blood, dung.
Muddy glory;
Sacred dirt.
She knows he is hers for only a moment.
The short years ahead
will soon loop back into eternity.
But for now,
she is the quiet keeper of a miracle.
He gazes at her with wide, bright eyes:
His mother.
His world.